you were laying back on my couch, that carefree way you do when you’re relaxed, at home, contentedly in the presence of so much girl. your arms were behind your head, ankles crossed, your bare feet on top of my lap. i was polishing my nails a second coat of “big apple red” between loving threats – you, to smudge the color on my wobbly left hand and me, warning that i would not hesitate to paint your toes in retaliation.

we’ve sat like this fifty times now you and i, but tonight you finally asked: “why that color always?” it wasn’t criticism, but genuine inquiry. i know i smiled and you detected it, but all i could do was shrug and murmur something about matching lipstick before trailing off.

do you want to know the truth? those prior forty-nine times i’d waited for you to ask. i had it planned in my head, the blush of your cheeks, when i’d tell you oh-so-sweetly and truthfully that it was nothing more than my love of contrasting colors: the bold, bossy red of my fingernails zigzagging through the black-as-night hairs that cover your scalp when you’re hovering above me, my hands – at least for that moment – free.

“are you two going to kiss?” the man who stumbled before us asked. he was drunk and wobbling on his two long legs in a way that suggested too much alcohol had mixed with a heart too weighted to keep balanced, to keep the body stable.

but i barely noticed.

because when you started to walk across the sidewalk to me, before he showed up swaying and destroying lazy-to-arrive-but-so-glad-you-finally-fucking-got-here moments like this, my vision tunneled to you. a body deliberate. calculated, intent on reaching, on doing, you sidled up to me mumbling some words about how it had been some twenty minutes since we’d talked and hadn’t that been too long? i searched for a response from a brain too tired of producing witty banter for you all day. see, those past 24 hours, saw me in a contest with myself, racing to see how fast i could make those crevices in the skin around your mouth deepen and turn darker as your smile stretched further every time. found me delivering package after package to you of smartly wrapped snark and flirt all wound tightly and made ornate with knotted heart strings for bows.

so i just smiled. and for once in the whole day, despite the frenetic swirl of drunk, happy queers tapdancing on cigarette butts outside the barroom door, allowed a bit of quiet between us. maybe my body sensed what was about to happen, knew that if it didn’t curb the firing of my brain’s synapses, i’d make some joke and we’d erupt again in a series of guffaws that of course felt good, but that didn’t end with the mingling of each other’s sweat on our upper lips.

when your hand found the bend in my waist that gives way to my hips that roll strong but pliant when you pull them just right, i knew silence had been the right choice. knew it twice as hard when, in seconds, there i was three inches from your face staring into eyes that wouldn’t release my own unless to quickly survey the state of my mouth which was, on this night, stained scarlet and heavy with the anticipation of you.

did you feel the drop when we fell into the vacuum of each other? when things around us slowed almost to the point of nonexistent as we considered the idea of halving and then obliterating all together the slowly shrinking space between us?

i remember i was thinking about your glasses and about the angle at which i’d bend my neck to avoid any sort of minor calamity of frames smashed into browbones or lenses fogged to the point of visual impairity when his voice, loud and sluggish with booze, slammed our feet back down on the concrete. i swear now that there were tiny spider-like cracks around our shoes from the impact of so brutally being forced to once again find the ground.

so, i went out with e last night and it was a really nice first date. i’m a habitual friends-first dater so, like, everyone who i’ve been involved with in my entire life, save for one or two exceptions, have been friends first and lovers/girlfriends/boifriends later. this was different. e and i, as detailed by my previous post, met after i posted on craig’s list in response to some idiot’s posting about “what lesbian equals” and how sick and tired she was of butches and genderqueer folks who “just want[ed] to be men.” e wrote me back, complimenting my “defense skills” and then we just struck up conversation and out we went.

again, i mentioned in my earlier post that i had to out myself as fat to him over the phone. this was such a complicated situation for me. again, friends-first, but also, i’ve never done internet dating..if this can even be considered that. he had seen my myspace profile, but i wasn’t exactly sure that my body size was clear from that. so here i am, in this awkward situation, of thinking that i need to tell him because i want to be upfront, but also not put myself in a disappointing or dangerous situation where i show up exactly as he did not expect me. but also, simultaneously trying to figure out how i’m going to convey what is mere fact and not actually a value judgment on myself and my body. like, how do you tell someone you’re fat who you don’t know whether or not they’re in any way fat positive and, at the same time, don’t want to make it seem as if you’re dissing yourself. lord! what a weird situation to be in.

anyway, e handled it awesomely and so, out we went last night. i have to say, i was struck by how nice it was to have doors opened for me and this consciousness for chivalry on his end. i mean, i’ve dated a lot of butches and while chivalry has never been dead, so to speak, it hasn’t been as well attended to as it was with e. we even had ourselves a good laugh about it when i tried to pay for my drink at one point and he insisted on paying and responded with “know your gender role!” cute. i mean, door opening, meal/drink paying, cigarette lighting, car door opening and closing. i mean, cute.

but yeah, the date was fun. he’s interesting and has a great laugh and smile that made me feel comfortable from the start. it was too short, in all honesty. we met up at 9 and i was home by 11:30. mostly, i think, because it was easter night and a lot of places weren’t open late, coupled with the fact that i totally would have invited him to see my apt. and meet lula (my cat), if my place wasn’t such a disaster from living a spring break lifestyle the past week.

i guess we’ll see what happens. i’d like to go out again. he was really sweet and fun and i’m definitely attracted to him. i’ll see what comes of it.

also, not for nothing, but serious props to me. #1: i went out on a date with someone i didn’t know, who wasn’t my friend. awesome. #2: i went out on a date not even a week after deciding to end the destructive hook-up situation i was involved with. eat that.

you weren’t the response i expected when i posted that craig’s list ad about stupid lesbians hating on butches, genderqueers, and tranny boys in the w4w section. you are sweet, funny and seem to have good politics. judging from that one phone conversation we’ve had and the slew of text messages we’ve exchanged, you seem like just the kind of guy i’d like to meet. your response to my being frantically upfront, due to the nature of our meeting, about being fat was pricelessly endearing – “it ain’t no thang.” thanks. i think you’re a “severe hottie” too.

i’m excited that i get to have drinks with you on sunday. i hope your snowy travels between mpls and wisc. are, in the meantime, safe.

xo,hussy red

—crush #2:

dear j,

i was swoony over you the first time i met you, but after your attendance at the femme mafia meeting where you claimed a “femme ally” position and sat back and listened, consciously making femme space and questioning what you could do to be supportive, i melted into puddles.

i know you’re already seeing someone not so seriously, i know you already casually asked out my best friend (good taste, but ouch!), and i know you’re poly and all that noise, but if you might consider kicking it with me for one minute, i’d mend that broken heart of yours like florence nightingale on speed, son.

just sayin’.

yours,hussy red

p.s. stop sending me so many text messages. i read too much into them because i like you so much. the end.

—crush #3:

dear e (which is actually your name),

i saw you at the bar after pride in june 2007 when you sold me a beer and then didn’t see you again until a few weeks ago. this time, you seemed to notice me…at least a raised eyebrow, big smile, and a “hey there” would suggest such. i tried getting up the nerve to talk to you, but every time i approached, you were surrounded by friends. you are handsome as all get out. i get all hot thinking of being domestic and cooking you eggs and bacon on sunday mornings.

they say you’re single. they say you don’t approach women. they say you like femmes. i say i’ma talk to them and see about you.